Signs

A lot has been happening during this visit to the USSA, and much of it has not been as good as I had hoped.  The events and situations that have arisen have had me looking very seriously at whether they are signs that I need to pay attention to, signs with messages about what I should or shouldn't do in the future.  Specifically, I've been thinking about my future in Ukraine.  It’s something I've been considering a lot the past days.

I believe strongly that the universe (or God, if you prefer) sends us signs and messages to help us find and navigate the right paths for ourselves.  I was not always so aware of this, but in the mid-1990s, I started to understand that what we often take as odd “coincidences” are almost always signs intended to help us know which way to go.

Similarly, people come into our lives with messages for us.  Sometimes, these are people who play a significant role, teaching us something we need to learn, helping us discover something important about ourselves, or just being a necessary source of support and confidence.  More often, however, it is the people who just sort of pass through our lives who have some of the most important messages for us.  But we rarely notice – unless we've learned to be more observant and aware.

Signs can come in the form of situations that either work out or don’t.  Signs can be songs on the radio that express a certain sentiment or idea that relates to what’s happening in your life.  A sign can be a book that happens to come into your hands at the right time to tell you something you need to know or consider.  It can be an animal that appears to you, either in real life or in a dream, and represents some knowledge, idea or value.  Signs can come to us in many ways in many forms.

This presents two problems.  On the one hand, a person might just not pay attention, not be aware, and not take advantage of the help that the universe tries to give.  But on the other hand, a person might go a little crazy trying to figure out which things are really relevant signs and which don’t apply.  Sometimes, if we don’t keep things in perspective, we can miss the real signs and let something less take us off on a tangent.

I think I am going through this now.  I've generally been pretty good at seeing the real signs and not falling for the bad actors.  But I know that I've made mistakes.  The path that led me to Ukraine was unmistakable: it has been extremely clear in retrospect but was also pretty easy to see as things were unfolding.

Often, you start to feel sort of "stale" in a situation and find yourself looking for signs to tell you whether it is time to end the situation and move on.  But the signs could be trying to suggest how to liven up the situation and make it better – not to move on.  A problem is that we often decide ahead of time which path we think we really want, and so we only acknowledge things we think are signs that support that choice. 

This often happens in relationships: the signs might be strong that you should go one way – perhaps try to initiate a new relationship or end an unfulfilling one – but even though you know intuitively that the signs are right, you are – for any of a variety of reasons – afraid to take the action they suggest.

Anyway, I have been finding myself looking much more closely at things lately and trying to decide if the universe is trying to tell me something. 

Frankly, in the latter half of 2012, I was really looking seriously at whether my time in Ukraine was coming to an end.  I enjoyed my teaching work, of course, but not a lot else was giving me much enjoyment.  Life was becoming stale, and maybe even a little frustrating.  Some things that I felt I really need in life just were not happening, and it started to feel like I was probably coming to the end of the Ukraine period of my life.

Then one of my client companies suggested working in a more official way.  Things came together on the idea of getting official residency and work permits, and it all seemed to make sense.  It seemed like a pretty clear sign to make at least another year's commitment to Ukraine.  But one thing bothered me: it was going to cost at least $1,000 to go through the process.  Sort of a bad sign.

I left on my trip for some family events and to apply for the visa I need for the residency/work permits.  That’s when it all started to go downhill.  First, my flight to Kiev was two hours late, which was not a big deal in and of itself, but in retrospect, it fit with everything else.  It was the first little bad sign of the trip.

I had to stand out in the cold wind at Borispol waiting for a car to take me to the overnight hotel near the airport.  It was supposed to be there to meet me, but was more than 30 minutes late.  I was freezing when it finally showed up.  The hotel was terrible, and I never slept at all before it was time to shower and head back to the airport for an early flight.  Another early sign?

That’s when it really started getting bad.

At passport control, the agent did not like something in my passport and took me to an “interview” room where he and another agent asked me a bunch of questions about the stamps in my passport.  They told me I had illegal stamps and that it was “very bad” for me.  I told them I was going back to apply for a new visa and obtain the residency permit.  Eventually, they let me go (without paying anything), but it was an ominous sign.

In Boston, my rental car turned out to be almost twice the cost as advertised.  The money hemorrhaging was beginning.  It was a bad dollar sign.

I had sent an email to the Ukrainian consulate in San Francisco a week earlier, but had never received a response.  I needed some additional information that was not on their Web site.  On Friday, my first full day in Massachusetts, I called the consulate to try to get an answer.  No one answered.  I called other consulates as well as the embassy in Washington.  No one answered.  But I HAD to get my application package – with my passport – off to the consulate that day.  So I did, but my biggest concern was getting my passport back in time for my return trip to Ukraine.  The fact that I had to send the package off without the information I needed was a troublesome sign.

That evening, I started getting more severe pain in my lower back and hip than usual.  Saturday morning, I could hardly walk at all.  I spent the weekend on a sofa, barely able to walk.  I’ll write another post about the pain, but it was the worst and most prolonged I can remember.  A painful sign.

On Monday, I had to fly to Denver.  The fact that I was in severe pain didn't matter, I had to fly.  I had to make my way through three different airports before I finally got my rental car in Denver and drove to a hotel in Boulder.  At times, it was agony.

In Denver, my rental car turned out to be almost twice the cost as advertised.  The money hemorrhaging was continuing.  More bad dollar signs.

I needed to find some important documents for apostille, necessary for my residency permit application in Ukraine.  They were not in my stored things.  This meant that I was going to have to go to several different cities to get the official documents, and then take them to a state office in Denver for the apostille.  But I had no time to do it until the next week.  It seemed like more and more signs were popping up to tell me that I should quit Ukraine.

Meanwhile, several days had gone by, and I was still suffering from the back and hip pain.  It turned out to be sciatica: a pinched sciatic nerve.

On Friday, I received a return package from the consulate in San Francisco.  They did not process my visa application because a particular document was missing.  This was a document that my client company was supposed to get from a Ukrainian government office.  I can only get it in Ukraine.  It was good to get my passport back, but the fact I didn't have the visa seemed like a strong sign that perhaps I am not supposed to go for the residency/work permit.

Over the weekend, the Denver Broncos – the number one team in the American Football Conference – were upset in their playoff game by the team from Baltimore.  That was a bad sign, and it would have been worse if I cared about football the way I used to.

Next, I discovered that the most important document I needed to get – my university diploma – would take three weeks to process.  I needed it done within three days.  It seemed like I had run out of luck.  There was no way I’d be able to get the document in time and no way I’d be able to get the permit. It seemed like a stop sign. 

But I tried anyway.  I called the university records office, and the woman there could not have been nicer.  She made the necessary arrangements to get me the document the same day.  So yesterday I drove two hours up to Fort Collins to get the document.  Not only was I successful at the university, but I was also successful at a county office where I needed another document.  What’s more, I was able to make a bank deposit, renew my Colorado driver’s license and buy some “Yaktrax” devices to help me avoid slipping on icy sidewalks.

So, Monday seemed like a day of positive signs. 

Of course, I will be returning to Ukraine at the end of the week.  Even if I had made a choice to move on from my life there – which I have not – I would have to return to take care of affairs there.  But there are still things coming up that may have some bearing on everything.  You never know what may happen during a series of flights, and the biggest hurdle will be going through passport control again in Kiev.  I hope there won’t be any problems getting back into the country.

If all goes well, I’ll continue the process of getting the residency/work permits.  If it goes smoothly, then I guess all these things that have been happening will not have been such big signs.  But the thing about signs is that they often come up to prevent you from making a mistake. 

But signs are not something that you can itemize, quantify, analyze and then make some kind of logic-based choice.  They affect you at an intuitive or emotional level, not in a logical way.  So, as always, my decisions will have to come from my gut… from how I feel about everything.  And at the moment, I really don’t know.

It would be nice to have something happen that would make everything perfectly clear.  But it never seems to work that easily.